Falling for Hope Page 2

  “Wait…” Amy managed, and, panting, Hope straightened, gazing down with darkened eyes full of need. Amy put her arms tentatively about Hope’s neck, glancing up at the woman in wonder. “Hope…” she murmured. “I’ve wanted to be with you since I met you. I wanted to date you…” Words didn’t seem adequate, but she swallowed, kept going, the dizzying need inside her pulsing and pushing her to hurry. “Did you…”

  But Hope stopped up her mouth with a kiss before backing away again, shaking her head, and—to Amy’s delight—smiling easily.

  “Even Melissa knew how much I was attracted to you,” said Hope then, voice low and throaty, almost a growl. It made Amy shiver in delight.

  “So this whole time…” Amy murmured, and then she was laughing, almost sobbing, helplessly, leaning against Hope. This whole time, if she’d only gotten up the courage…

  “Let’s waste no more time,” said Hope, then, and their mouths met, and their hearts touched.

  That night, the summer party got off to a glorious start.

  Building Hope

  Amy was having a wonderful dream.

  For the past five years, she’d been head over heels in love with an unattainable woman—her best friend Hope. But, in this dream, Hope was kissing Amy inside of Hope’s vacation cabin. Outside, the fireflies moved through the forest, and the crickets sang, and everything felt so right.

  Breathless, dizzy with Hope’s kisses, Amy wished the dream would go on forever.

  But, as all dreams must, it came to an end when she opened her eyes.

  Amy breathed out slowly and snuggled closer to the pillow. Maybe, if she positioned herself just right, she could go back to sleep and pick up in the dream where she had left off…

  Warm lips kissed her bare shoulder.

  Amy’s eyes opened again.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” whispered Hope in Amy’s ear, kissing her cheek, soft lips moving to her neck now. Amy’s heartbeat throbbed in her veins as she rolled over, staring in complete shock at Hope Wells, her best friend, the woman she’d been desperately, hopelessly in love with since the moment they met.

  Hope bent down and brushed her lips against Amy’s with a smile, that easy smile that made Amy’s heart beat a little faster. Her warm mouth pressed against Amy’s mouth again clinched it: this was, most certainly, not a dream.

  The previous night came rushing back to Amy as Hope kissed her. Amy had confessed to Hope, finally, that she’d been in love with her all this time. And Hope had confessed to her that she felt the very same way about Amy.

  But unhappier thoughts began to creep into Amy’s consciousness. Like the fact that she and Hope were, right now, tangled together in the bed that Hope and Melissa had once shared. That it had been only six months and one day since Melissa died in the car crash that had, with its tragedy and suddenness, rocked their small group of friends. That Hope and Melissa had once been partners, and, right at this moment, Hope and Amy were betraying Melissa’s memory.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Hope, brows creasing as she lay on her elbow, staring down at Amy. “What is it?” she asked, words more sober when Amy sat up, holding the blanket to her chest.

  “I just…” She gulped down air and closed her eyes, trying to calm her beating heart.

  “Don’t tell me that you regret it.” Hope sighed and lay back down on the bed, one arm arched above her head as she settled against her pillow with a frown. “Because I’m the one who came on to you, Amy. Do you regret the fact that we…” She trailed off, biting her lip, waiting.

  Amy gazed at the handsome woman beside her and rubbed a hand over her face, breathing out. “What about Melissa?” she asked in a small voice.

  Hope reached toward Amy, then, and put her arms around her, pulling her near, to nestle against her. The way that Amy fit into the space between Hope’s shoulder and chest, in the hollow and crook of her arm, made her feel as if she and Hope were two pieces of a puzzle, at last perfectly placed. Amy’s heartbeat began to calm as Hope gently and rhythmically stroked her hair and her shoulder, fingers long and slow and steady upon her bare skin.

  “I told you last night,” said Hope quietly, pressing her lips to Amy’s forehead. “Melissa and I weren’t right for each other. I miss her—deeply—and I will never forget her or let her memory die. But we weren’t even together when she got into the accident. I’ve spent six months waiting, out of respect, out of…” She drifted off, stared at the ceiling as her jaw worked. “Out of something. And I’ve always been attracted to you, Amy, and it’s not wrong or disrespectful to Melissa’s memory for me to finally have the courage to do something about it.”

  Amy shuddered a little, emotion wending its way through her body until she trembled from its aftereffects.

  Maybe she was still dreaming. This was, after all, a dream come true.

  Amy breathed out again, a long, low sigh that soothed her nerves. She rose to her elbows, staring down at the softly smiling woman who lay beneath her now. Hope’s short black hair pointed crazily in all directions, and her easy smile was aimed directly at Amy’s heart, it seemed.

  “Okay,” said Amy, nodding slowly and smiling, too. “Let’s—”

  But whatever else she was going to say was drowned out by an earsplitting rumble of thunder. Amy jumped a little, but Hope glanced at the window with a slanted mouth as the sky opened outside. The summer storm had stolen quietly but quickly over the mountain, and a deluge of rain now battered against the roof.

  “Aw, crap!” came Chris’s grumble from outside the bedroom, out in the hallway. Hope and Amy could hear the other women in the cabin, their friends, rising and moving about. And then there came a nearer voice, projected straight through the closed bedroom door. Followed by a tentative knock.

  “Hope?” Irene said. “Hope, are you up?”

  “Yeah, Irene—just a minute,” said Hope, rising and casting about for her tank top and boxer shorts. She found them crumpled on the floor and began pulling them on hurriedly as Amy, too, began a frantic search for her pajamas. She found her bottoms wadded up at the foot of the bed and discovered wrinkled underwear beneath her discarded t-shirt.

  Hope opened the door just a crack when they were both fully dressed.

  “What’s up?” asked Hope, offering her easy smile. Amy glimpsed Irene’s arched eyebrow even through the narrow opening.

  Good-naturedly, Irene chuckled, murmuring, “Wonderful.”

  Amy watched in surprise as the back of Hope’s neck flushed red.

  “What can I do you for, Irene?” Hope grumbled.

  Irene, laughing, jerked her thumb behind her, indicating the hallway. “Unfortunately, we’ve sprung a leak,” she said, with a wry twist to her mouth. “Do you want to come check it out?”

  “Shit,” muttered Hope, running her hands through her hair (which did little to tame its messy—and, to Amy’s eyes, adorable—state).

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m right behind you,” Amy promised, and Hope nodded, letting herself out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Amy could hear Hope’s and Irene’s voices fading away as they walked down the hallway.

  Exhaling, Amy sat on the edge of the bed for a long moment, remembering Hope’s embrace, listening to the thunder and rain outside, feeling excitement and worry tangle together within her.

  ---

  “Morning, sunshine! You’re the last one up, so you’re on breakfast dishes duty,” said Lindsey, mouth poised in a tight, no-nonsense smile as Amy wandered, dazed, into the kitchen. Amy made a mock salute but grinned as she opened the fridge door and stared at the bounty that the women had assembled to nourish themselves for the week at the cabin.

  Though each woman was charged with bringing a list of provisions, most everyone brought surprises, too, and the food was available to anyone who craved it, unless it was marked. There were a few six-packs of premium beer on the top shelf, along with the more generic stuff. All of the premium cans had “THIS IS THE BEER OF CHRIS HANDS OFF” Sharpied ac
ross them. Typical. Amy chuckled a little and shook her head as she reached for a cup of strawberry yogurt.

  “…we’ll patch the roof when the rain lets up a little,” said Hope, walking into the kitchen with Irene and Chris. The three resident butches leaned against the counters in unison as Hope thumped her tool chest down. “I should have some tar in the garage,” she added thoughtfully, while Chris stretched overhead, yawning with her mouth open wide. Chris had had a bit too much to drink last night, as evidenced by her heavy-eyed frown. Most mornings, Chris was more cheerful than a cartoon—except for the morning after the women first arrived at the cabin. It was her traditional night of celebration.

  “The only reason I’m helping you patch that hole is that I want to impress my new girlfriend,” Chris said, yawning hugely again. Amy pressed her hand to her mouth to suppress her own yawn. “I gotta show her how completely awesome I am,” said Chris, hooking her thumb toward herself as she leaned backwards on her elbows against the granite, flipping a sweep of blonde hair out of her eyes. Most of her hair was carefully teased up, save for a dashing cowlick that she purposefully styled in front of one eye.

  “Chris, you’re always so generous with your time and valuable skills,” Hope deadpanned, as Irene chuckled and Chris scowled. Irene’s short brunette hair was plastered to her skull and neck, and Hope was soaked. Chris was the only dry one, which made Amy think that Irene and Hope had probably been looking at the roof while Chris watched them, offering helpful advice, from the safety of the porch.

  “So, what do you guys think of her?” asked Chris then, bending toward Lindsey and Amy. She was waggling her eyebrows.

  “Your new lady?” asked Lindsey, crossing her arms and casting her eyes heavenward. “Aren’t you a little old for her, Chris?”

  “What?” asked Chris, spreading her arms and shrugging, which meant that, yes, she was absolutely too old for her. “She’s a college kid!”

  “You’re thirty-five,” said Lindsey, brow raised.

  “I’m still maturing,” Chris quipped, as Irene and Hope snorted, muting their laughter in steaming coffee cups.

  “I think she’s very nice,” said Amy, trying to remember if she’d even spoken two words to Chris’s new girlfriend last night. She couldn’t remember her name. Was it Clarice? Clara? Claudia? It started with cl, she thought.

  “Hey, you know, I’m not like you guys,” said Chris, jutting her chin out at Lindsey, and, by proxy, Irene. “You guys have been together—what is it now? A million years? Makes me nauseated.” She grinned good-naturedly.

  “Fifteen years,” said Irene, setting her coffee cup down and gazing at her wife with shining eyes. Lindsey’s smile was pure love as she took Irene’s empty coffee cup from her, reached across the counter, and kissed her lightly on the lips.

  “Yeah, see, this is why I can’t be like you guys,” said Chris, shaking her head and spreading her hands. “I would get so bored! Look at you. You’re still moon-eyed for each other after fifteen years. Fifteen days, and I’m already bored stiff.” She yawned again, shuffled toward the coffeemaker. “Melissa always told me—” She stopped mid-sentence, realizing what she’d said. The kitchen grew quiet.

  Hope cleared her throat.

  “Look,” she said gently. “This is the first summer party without Melissa here. That’s hard. But we can’t keep avoiding the elephant in the room, okay? Melissa would have hated that.”

  Chris’s jaw clenched as she set the coffee cup down on the counter with a clink.

  “Melissa’s gone,” said Hope quietly, pressing her hands against the counter and staring down at them. “She was an amazing woman, and we all miss her. But we’ve been in mourning for six months.” She looked up as she said this, looked up and directly into Amy’s eyes, searching, hopeful. “And now it’s time for us to continue living, and by living, celebrate her life.”

  “Here, here,” said Irene softly, lifting up her coffee cup.

  Chris poured herself some more coffee, silent.

  Hope glanced out the window, at the dripping trees and clearing sky. “I think the rain stopped,” she said then, voice low. “Will you guys help me with the roof?”

  When Chris and Irene and Hope had gone outside, Lindsey took a paper towel and scrubbed hard at the already clean countertop, breathing out a sigh. Amy found a spoon, opened her cup of yogurt, and sat down at the table, crossing her legs beneath her.

  “Chris was Melissa’s best friend,” said Lindsey, then, approaching Amy with the damp paper towel in her hands. She sat down beside Amy and looked into her eyes, holding her gaze. “Irene told me what happened, Amy. She told me about you and Hope.” The lithe woman bent her head gracefully as she stared at the tabletop. “It’s good, really good. It’s been a long time coming, right? And I’m really happy for you both. But I wanted you to know…” She swallowed. “When Chris finds out, she’s going to be…” She bit her lip, glanced up. “Well. You know how Chris gets.”

  Amy went cold, head to toe. She placed the spoon in her yogurt cup and pushed it away from her. “Chris…Chris wouldn’t. She won’t care. She’s with a different woman every few days,” said Amy helplessly. “How can she judge?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Lindsey, shaking her head. Then, more quietly, she murmured, “We think she had a thing for Melissa.”

  ---

  The only time Amy had ever see Chris in a serious mood was during Melissa’s funeral.

  The friends had remained at the edge of the grave after the coffin was lowered into the ground. It was winter, and the snow was piled around them, the silence and hush of the morning broken only by a few sniffles and the crunch of snow beneath restless boots. Everyone was lined up, arms around the shoulders of the women next to her, on either side. It was the only way, Amy knew, that she’d been able to keep standing. No one ever expects to bury one of their dearest friends.

  She was numb, stunned, shocked.

  They had all brought flowers, and each woman tossed in a bouquet without saying anything, the silence broken only by the dull thumps of the stems and blossoms against the hard coffin lid. The last one to throw flowers down was Chris, and Amy remembered Chris struggling for a moment, jaw clenched, eyes tightly squeezed shut.

  When Chris opened her eyes, Amy realized the woman was crying.

  She’d never seen Chris cry before. Chris joked about everything. When Chris’s own mother passed away, she’d quipped in a group email that Satan would finally be given a run for his money down in hell. She didn’t take anything seriously, no matter how solemn the circumstances. Amy had doubted whether she ever could take anything seriously.

  And now here she was, openly weeping.

  Granted, so was everyone else. But on that cold, unforgiving morning, as Chris threw down the final flowers, as they whispered their goodbyes to Melissa, as the women turned to go, Amy—who had been standing next to Chris—paused.

  “Are you all right?” she asked her. Chris shook her head, motioned for her, silently, to go on, and Amy had turned, following Hope and the others back down the shoveled pathway to the row of cars.

  And when she reached her own car, Amy glanced back to see Chris still lingering by the grave, looking surprisingly small in her black wool coat as she stared down into the hole carved out of the earth, as if it had just taken something precious from her.

  ---

  “I’m not saying Melissa cheated on Hope,” said Lindsey hurriedly, as Amy shook herself out of the memory. “I’m saying that I think something happened between them when Hope and Melissa were separated. That they might have started dating. They would have wanted to keep it quiet in our group, you know.” Lindsey scratched at an imaginary dirty spot on the table. “I think that Chris was more attached to Melissa than she ever let on. She was very loyal to Melissa. I think…she loved her. And she’s going to be so angry if she thinks…” With a sigh, Lindsey shrugged, leaning back in the chair. “I mean, maybe I’m making something out of nothing,” she said, mouth
curved into a small frown, “but I don’t want you to get hurt because of Chris’s hot head, Amy.”

  Amy leaned back in her chair, too, no longer hungry for her breakfast. “Thank you,” she said, gulping down air.

  “I’m serious.” Lindsey’s voice was gentle. “I know how long you’ve been pining for Hope.”

  Startled, Amy stared at Lindsey, but Lindsey only shrugged and sighed again. “Irene and I both knew. It was obvious to us, but I don’t think it was, or is, to the others. We saw it in the little things, mostly: glances you gave her. Words you said and didn’t say. And we had confirmation that Hope felt the same way about you.” Lindsey smiled. “Hope tells Irene everything. And Irene, of course, tells me.”

  Amy felt strange and very small as she sat on the kitchen chair, feeling the wicker press into the backs of her legs. “It’s odd,” she said then, voice soft. “I’ve wanted this for so long, and then it happened…” She stared down at her hands, loosely clasped in her lap. “I’m afraid. I’m terrified that I’m going to screw it up, or maybe we’re not meant to be together, after all, or…really…” She chuckled, shook her head. “I’m afraid of a billion things. But it feels so right, Lindsey. No matter what, I’ll always have last night. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few days....” At a loss for words, she looked up at the woman beside her, searching her face.

  Lindsey smiled, mouth curving up at the corners. “When Irene and I first got together… Well, Irene was my first relationship with a woman.” Lindsey rolled her eyes, laughing. “I’d just gotten divorced from my husband. I divorced him so young, and I felt so broken. I couldn’t love him. I’d tried and I’d failed. And then here’s this woman… She owns her own company. She’s gorgeous beyond belief. She knows exactly what she wants from life. And she wants me. Me,” said Lindsey, raising her eyes to meet Amy’s. They stared at one another for a moment, and then Lindsey shook her head again. “I know you guys joke that I’m the drill sergeant, but back then, I didn’t have anything together. I was worried that the relationship would fall apart in my hands, that it was all a dream.”